vjek said:The purpose of making the list was to point out that each of these CAN be implemented punitively, but that not more than one should be. That's why I listed them, and pointed out that each one could be punitive, but they all should not be. I'm not sure how I could have been more clear, but I'll be more verbose in the future, just for your benefit.
So, for 'how to exploit a campfire' which one from that list would you like to implement punitively, in your opinion, Jothany?
I'm not sure how I could have been more clear, but I'll be more verbose in the future, just for your benefit.
None of the paramaters on your list will be "punitive" REGARDLESS of the numeric value VR ascribes to them.
Therefore, even if every one of those parameters that can be logically applied to a give mechanic are implemented, none of them will be punitive. They will just be the available range of values for that game mechanic.
For avoiding abuse of a "campfire based dungeon summons" as this thread is discussing, I think geographic limitation on who can be summoned and potentially a casting timer will be necessary. Other paramaters are likely to be needed as well as I haven't yet read a description of one sytem that would cover all the issue. Good ideas, just not a complete answer yet.
This is an interesting thread - let us try to keep it from being closed down by disagreeing where we have differing opinions but not being disagreeable.
A couple of prerequisites that might make the campfire summon less of a exploit and more of a specific tool.
- Player must be in the vacinity of the dungeon, or what would be considered the "zone". Summoning players from across the world is a travel exploit IMO.
- Player being summoned must have discovered the camp site already.
- The group summoning the player must be a mostly full group (3 or more people). This makes it so 1 or 2 players can't just summon an entire group instantly.
- Cooldown timer: A somewhat of a longer cooldown timer per summon would make sense. Instantly summoning 3-4 people seems more like a "lobby" situation and less of a resource if 1 important player class logs out, or disconnects, in the middle of a dungeon.
I'm all for campfire summons as long as they arent exploited and they aren't so numerous that it takes away from the actual feel of a dungeon. Instantly bypassing all dungeon content from point A to point Z for 4-5 people seems like handholding. What I gathered was that it is supposed to be a tool for keeping a group going should something happen to 1 or 2 members.
Dusk said:A couple of prerequisites that might make the campfire summon less of a exploit and more of a specific tool.
- Player must be in the vacinity of the dungeon, or what would be considered the "zone". Summoning players from across the world is a travel exploit IMO.
Its usually getting to the dungeon that is the easy part, so this isn't a real penalty only requiring you to be in the dungeon to get summoned to the campsite.
Dusk said:
- Player being summoned must have discovered the camp site already.
The point of campsites is that the players place them wherever they are. These will probably not be fixed locations, so there would be no way to have a player 'discover the campsite' when they are placed by players dynamically.
Dusk said:
- The group summoning the player must be a mostly full group (3 or more people). This makes it so 1 or 2 players can't just summon an entire group instantly.
Being in a 'mostly full group' needs an amendment: The players doing the summoning must be within some fixed radius of the campsite.
Dusk said:
- Cooldown timer: A somewhat of a longer cooldown timer per summon would make sense. Instantly summoning 3-4 people seems more like a "lobby" situation and less of a resource if 1 important player class logs out, or disconnects, in the middle of a dungeon.
Yes, a long cooldown (say 30 minutes per campsite just for sake of argument) would help. There would need to be a further restriction in that campsites cannot exist with the same radius of each other. That way you can't summon down 2 people who then also drop campsites to then summon more, rinse repeat to pull a full raid. Furthermore, to stop even this happening the setting down a campsite triggers the 30 minute cooldown. You can't just drop a campsite then instantly summon someone.
Feel like the OP's specific concerns are a bit of a misunderstanding or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the campfire port?
FBSS was not no-drop, at least originally. Pantheon is supposedly not going to have many no-drop items. That really changes your concerns I think, but there are plenty of others heh.
You would still have to leave the camp to go to a campfire to collect your replacement or send the Wiz to invis them down to you if appropriate. Unless you could hold the camp with less players to port them in and run back, which seems okay?
I would imagine there won't be a teleporter around every corner with a named. Joppa even says in the DRT that it at least keeps them in the same vicinity to where they were, to recalibrate. That says to me you will have to do more than simply camp at the safe-spot.
I'm not a fan of these QoL features broadly but since this is the way they are going...
Requirement to unlock the teleporter yourself before someone else can port you there is good.
Making the teleporter a physical game object rather than a spell that can be cast anywhere is good in my book. Players have to at least clear back to the campfire to collect their friend, even though they don't have to clear back to the dungeon entrance.
Perhaps require 2-3 group members in order to cast the summon, each player having their own cooldown debuff.
Perhaps require a reagent as a money sink, we always need more gold sinks.
I like the idea of it only working from the dungeon entrance on top of those as well. It facilitates people meeting up and LFG and having to make an effort to do a dungeon run.
I don't view those things as punitive. I view them as balance for a super powerful, game changing ability that is on a slippery slope to dungeon finder "insta combat simulator RPG" if not kept in check.
The point of campsites is that the players place them wherever they are. These will probably not be fixed locations, so there would be no way to have a player 'discover the campsite' when they are placed by players dynamically.
Okay wait did I miss something from chat or discord? The DRT stream he clearly says "unlock them"
Jothany said: ... None of the paramaters on your list will be "punitive" REGARDLESS of the numeric value VR ascribes to them.
IMO:
Ok, let's take a run at that. Here's the list:
A long recast timer.
A long casting time.
A requirement for a certain amount of a class-based resource to be consumed, like mana. (mana cost)
A requirement for a certain consumable resource to be consumed.
A geographical use restriction.
A range restriction.
Let's say VR ascribes all the following values:
A recast timer of 7 RL days. You can only cast it once per RL week.
A Casting time of 10 minutes. You can't move for 600 seconds while casting.
A mana cost of 100% of your mana. All of it.
A consumable cost of 5 of the most expensive/valuable Gems in the entire game world.
Can only be used in one level 0-9 (tier1) dungeon, not one dungeon at a time, but just one, and you don't get to pick or change it.
It can only summon a person within 10 meters.
So, would that make the mechanic fun, or not, in your opinion? Would that encourage social and gameplay, and increase subscriber retention, in your opinion?
This example is hyperbolic to show they definitely can be made to be punitive to the point where no-one would ever use them.
I am simply advocating that as a consequence, it's best to recommend and/or implement just one punitive restriction so that the mechanic will actually get used by the players, rather than the opposite.
And that design principle applies to all skills, spells, and abilities, not just this one, from my perspective.
Vandraad said:Dusk said:
Dusk said:- Player being summoned must have discovered the camp site already.
The point of campsites is that the players place them wherever they are. These will probably not be fixed locations, so there would be no way to have a player 'discover the campsite' when they are placed by players dynamically.
Dusk said:- The group summoning the player must be a mostly full group (3 or more people). This makes it so 1 or 2 players can't just summon an entire group instantly.
Being in a 'mostly full group' needs an amendment: The players doing the summoning must be within some fixed radius of the campsite.
Dusk said:
- Cooldown timer: A somewhat of a longer cooldown timer per summon would make sense. Instantly summoning 3-4 people seems more like a "lobby" situation and less of a resource if 1 important player class logs out, or disconnects, in the middle of a dungeon.
I was under the assumption that the "campfires" were fixed points within a dungeon that were like pre-determined safe areas to camp, rather than individualized spots.
Joppa clarified that these campfires had to be cleared prior to being summoned, like a checkpoint.
GeneralReb said:
The point of campsites is that the players place them wherever they are. These will probably not be fixed locations, so there would be no way to have a player 'discover the campsite' when they are placed by players dynamically.
Okay wait did I miss something from chat or discord? The DRT stream he clearly says "unlock them"
And other times campsites were discussed as something players put down themselves. Like so many other concepts in this game, what the actual end product will be is still complely up in the air. Yes, we did see in an Amberfaet stream a location where 2 NPCs were standing around which was 'a campsite' and it was there Joppa mentioned that such locations were 'safe spots'.
But what about these static campsites in overworld zones? There can be locations where a given player cannot reach a group so would we not see them there as well? A couple in Hanggore in Avender's Pass for example?
vjek said:Jothany said: ... None of the paramaters on your list will be "punitive" REGARDLESS of the numeric value VR ascribes to them.
Let's say VR ascribes all the following values:.....
So, would that make the mechanic fun, or not, in your opinion? Would that encourage social and gameplay, and increase subscriber retention, in your opinion?
Oh you got me there. I can't deny that if VR wanted Pantheon to fail, they could certainly adjust the values of those and many other parameters to be so pointless, tedious and frustrating that "punitive" would truly be an apt description. Of course, it is also impossible to deny that space aliens might finally arrive and start enslaving the human race one day before Pantheon releases and make all of this discussion pointless. Which is hyperbolic (and pointless) just like your examples, which you admitted.
This example is hyperbolic to show they definitely can be made to be punitive to the point where no-one would ever use them.
The point we disagree on, which somehow I don't seem to have made clear, is this: In all of your comments that I've been responding to, you have not claimed that any SPECIFIC VALUE for those parameters you list was punitive, unlike what you do here.
You have repeatedly just listed them and called them punitive without qualification. Which defines them as inherently punitive. And then used that definition to advocate for only having one of them apply to the particular ability under discussion (as well as most abilities in general).
Since an ability to summon to a dungeon has high potential for abuse, I expect VR to use several of those parameters to avoid the abuse. And since VR wants the game to succeed, I don't expect them to set any of those parameters to a hyperbolic level of restriction. Which IMO would not be punitive.
Just for fun and to illustrate my opinion about why the values make a parameter punitive rather than the parameter itself, I'll take a run at your list and show situations where those parameters WITH your hyperbolic values aren't necessarily punitive. (it's a slow morning)
1 A recast timer of 7 RL days. You can only cast it once per RL week.
2 A Casting time of 10 minutes. You can't move for 600 seconds while casting.
3 A mana cost of 100% of your mana. All of it.
4 A consumable cost of 5 of the most expensive/valuable Gems in the entire game world.
5 Can only be used in one level 0-9 (tier1) dungeon, not one dungeon at a time, but just one, and you don't get to pick or change it.
It can only summon a person within 10 meters.
1 Long ago, I had a character somewhere that had a powerful racial active that could only be used once a day. A great 'save your whole group from certain death' ability, usable once a week, wouldn't be out of bounds, what with inflation and all :)
2 A once in your life spell that permanently increases one of your skills. Can only be done in a dangerous dungeon. Your groupmates have to keep you alive until you finish, just like a Crafter at the forge we've heard about in Amberfeit.
3 Easy peasy. A finisher for the wizard, only works below X% health. You save it for an important boss when your group won't last until he's dead, guaranteed to kill him, but revives a random # of his henchmen who have already been killed by the group, which now has to deal with them without their glass cannon.
4 Even easier. It already existed. In Ashron's Call the most expensive gem/item in the world was a platinum scarab. It was a casting reagent, sold at mage shops, for the highest level spells in the game. People used them as currency once they got so rich that carrying money became burdensome for high level trade. Whenever you fizzled a spell you burned up the platinum scarab. Fizzles were common when your skill was just high enough to cast a given level. Getting your skill up high enough reduced fizzles down to zero, but you had to cast those spells to raise your skill. Every high level player burned up a small fortune of them while leveling. AC didn't surpass EQ, but it was quite successful, running 17 years.
5 Geo restriction just means it is a unique spell, only necessary and useful for one dungeon. Is found and learned by just one class, on the far side of a difficult barrier, at the end of a dungeon, that takes forever to get ONE person thru at a time. Your group could patiently & safely get every member thru the slow tedious way, OR that one class can go thru, risking a solo death to get and permanently learn the spell, which then can summon the rest of the group thru one at a time with no recast timer. The short geo range is so you can't send one specialized group in to get TO the barrier, then summon a different group to take on the final boss ahead.
Great reward = great effort. It's all in the balance.
We have a lot of discussion about how restrictive to make the summoning rules and what limitations to place on them (carefully avoids the word "punitive").
Since we all agree that encouraging grouping is a positive thing - and we all agree that relatively easy summoning does encourage grouping - the only reason for this discussion is a general feeling that the benefit to grouping is counterbalanced by harm to other things we care about. Probably most of us would use terms like large world and slow travel to describe what we want to protect. Some of us refer, correctly, to the need to prevent or at least limit exploits.
I think an obvious threshold question before any decisions are made is a simple one. What exploits are we afraid of? What harm are we trying to prevent?
Only one comes obviously to mind. The ability a campfire gives to bypass the large world and be able to do group content with no traveling at all. Something that some classes will be given, at least partially, in any case.
Getting to a new part of the world is not a factor - not if any attempt to leave the dungeon or leave the group sends the character back to its starting point. An established feature of many such teleport systems. No, the harm of a campfire is that someone can log on, get some adventuring time in, and log off without having to actually go through any part of the world. Much like the much-despised (by some of us) LFG tools that create groups and automatically teleport the group to the dungeon. The only difference is that one person at a time is being teleported not the group as a whole. Similar to the fairly common system of having summoning portals at the start of a dungeon and requiring one group member to actually be there to summon.
One list of possibilities given above follows with comments.
A long recast timer. - Agreed.
A long casting time. - Not necessary if it cannot be cast in combat - but probaly a good idea.
A requirement for a certain amount of a class-based resource to be consumed, like mana. (mana cost) - I would let any class do this and use an inventory item - a very expensive one - that would be destroyed when used.
A requirement for a certain consumable resource to be consumed. - Agreed . Make it very expensive.
A geographical use restriction. - Only usable at a campfire makes sense to me.
A range restriction. - Only usable for people already in the dungeon is my preference - to be expanded if in practice that is too limiting.
Jothany said: ... The point we disagree on, which somehow I don't seem to have made clear, is this: In all of your comments that I've been responding to, you have not claimed that any SPECIFIC VALUE for those parameters you list was punitive, unlike what you do here....
Just for fun and to illustrate my opinion about why the values make a parameter punitive rather than the parameter itself, I'll take a run at your list and show situations where those parameters WITH your hyperbolic values aren't necessarily punitive. (it's a slow morning)
1 A recast timer of 7 RL days. You can only cast it once per RL week.
2 A Casting time of 10 minutes. You can't move for 600 seconds while casting.
3 A mana cost of 100% of your mana. All of it.
4 A consumable cost of 5 of the most expensive/valuable Gems in the entire game world.
5 Can only be used in one level 0-9 (tier1) dungeon, not one dungeon at a time, but just one, and you don't get to pick or change it.
It can only summon a person within 10 meters.
IMO:
1: Nope, only that they can be.
2: It was all, not each, and not for separate spells/skills/abilities, but for this specific thread topic. Which is why I have only advocated, in this thread, for one, rather than all, for summoning. So it's nice to see that each of them individually are acceptable, as that's logical.
This list, however, is not a single potentially punitive feature.
" ... limiting a summons to PCs that are in the same zone, or better yet in the immediate area of the dungeon will help a lot. Not letting the same PC be summoned more than once - unless they had already been present with the group and died - would also help. And of course some amount of a cooldown on the summons would help too. "
It's 3 or 4, depending on how you interpret each, and how you interpret punitive. Hence my concern that you're advocating for many, where clearly one will do.
--
dorotea said: What exploits are we afraid of? What harm are we trying to prevent?
Speaking only for myself.. Very few and None. I don't see the harm in summoning players to join the group, and I see almost no risk for exploitation, if it remains server-specific (rather than cross server) and is a one-way trip.
If it cost very little mana, had a very fast casting time, had a very fast recast timer, did not require a consumble, and was castable from up to one zone away from the dungeon, I have zero issues with that implementation, because I want to play the game with my friends and guildmates. Getting us together as quickly as possible has no downside, from my perspective, and none of us fear fast travel.
Teleportation and/or fast travel are currently public design goals for Pantheon. I've played MMOs without fast travel and they're just extremely un-fun running simulators. And I'm not playing them anymore, because they're shut down, partially because players couldn't get together to group. :)
I do not understand the desire to make gathering your group together to participate in the adventure loop a punitive and/or tedious experience. It actively works against the tenet of social and group play.
Some great ideas and thought prompting comments in this thread from all.
I think what worries me is the potential for this to have an effect like the Dungeon Finder in WoW introduced with Wrath of the Lich King, if I recall correctly.
The ultra-conveniece removed almost all meaning from travel, dungeons and grouping.
It made it so dungeon location was unimportant. You teleport to it and then back out when done. That made the world feel unimportant, when the 'best content' required no travelling to reach. Perhaps if you have to go there at least once, that restores some meaning, but far from all when you find after a while you simply don't need to travel at all, you just wait for a campfire invite (or, in WoW, sit at the auction house and bounce back-and-forth to whatever dungeon you fancy).
It made it so the act and process of forming a group was trivial, which meant you had no opportunity, need or desire, in the end, to form the slightest social bond with your group. No effort to reach to each other means no interest in what others are doing in game. No effort to coordinate schedules means no interest in others. No fighting your way into a dungeon together means no familiarity before being thrown into the deep end, which means no cohesion and more likely discord. Etc. You could be one of those people who doesn't care, sure. I'd like to think that is rare, though and kinda defeats the point, or at least removes much of the meaning that many enjoy, in MMORPGs.
It's like choosing to build a company using a workforce where everyone is a part-time temp. You will probably never see any of your colleagues again, so the tendancy is to not bother to get to know anyone. No comeradery. The people you spend the majority of your life with you have no meaningful connection with. Pretty miserable.
Slight hyperbole to make a point: Dungeon Finder turned WoW into a conveyor belt of toxic speed runs. The campfire concept has a very similar potential.
@vjek: "I do not understand the desire to make gathering your group together to participate in the adventure loop a punitive and/or tedious experience. It actively works against the tenet of social and group play."
I respectfully disagree. I certainly don't mean to call you ant-social, but it seems you don't appreciate the social aspects of grouping as much as some?
You just want to play with you friends and guildmates and avoid any 'hassle'? Well, it's a lot easier to make those friends and join guilds if you take part in the 'hassle' of getting to know other players out in the world. Being dumped into a high-pressure dungeon crawl is not the perfect way to get to know players - certainly not a rounded experience - unless maybe all you every want are impersonal and efficient dungeon runs, but I would also contend that being impersonal means those runs can't be as efficient as possible. I group that 'knows' each other more will work better together. You don't have to be bestest buddies, but just a bit of social interaction goes a long way.
Like corpse runs in the death penalty, limitation of fast travel, regionalising of auction houses and no magic 'email', etc. If done well (and they can be), these 'limitations' are not punitive or tedious, these make features meaningful and satisfying either directly or indirectly.
A group needing to travel to each other then onto a dungeon is not working against the gameplay, it *is* the gameplay. A group needing to fight their way back to a dungeon safe point to fetch a new member *is* the gameplay. Perhaps organising schedules and talking through session aims isn't 'gameplay' but it sure is an important part of a social game. As I say, these small social aspects can greatly enhance, well, *everything* else in a session.
Getting us together as quickly as possible has no downside, from my perspective, and none of us fear fast travel.Teleportation and/or fast travel are currently public design goals for Pantheon. I've played MMOs without fast travel and they're just extremely un-fun running simulators. And I'm not playing them anymore, because they're shut down, partially because players couldn't get together to group. :)
I do not understand the desire to make gathering your group together to participate in the adventure loop a punitive and/or tedious experience. It actively works against the tenet of social and group play.
I've played MMOs with fast travel and they're just extremely un-fun dungeon simulators, not a true online world or classic MMORPG. And I'm not playing them anymore, because they are full of toxic behavior because everyone is a stranger with an attitude of "rush rush rush for phat lewt" and "I don't care about the other people in my group".
The problem is that when you make the best rewards available via fast travel, the rest of the world has no meaning at all. Why even build the world if one can simply port to the lewts? (Oh and come on, the Wiz/Dru ports are not the same monster, I hope haha)
It turns the game in to a Dungeon loot simulator instead of an MMORPG world to live in (running simulator according to you). It creates feelings of "wasted time" for players, when they have to do any traveling. It created the playerbase that we are facing of modern MMO players that will quit as you said, because "they couldn't get together to group" ie; couldn't stand having to traverse the world and overcome challenges to get to a dungeon and clear it Right Now, during MY playtime, as fast as possible because efficiency of my time is the most important thing.
I never felt like I was "wasting time" in EQ vanilla running across the world. I felt like I was playing the game and inhabiting the world.
I see this alot "the 10th or 100th time I run through the zone I shouldn't have to worry about the map, give me GPS. I shouldn't have to even see that zone again, give me a port".
Those are all fine perspectives to have, but is it what Pantheon was supposed to be? Because to me, the living world thing is ruined by too much fast travel.
@disposalist summed it up nicely above.
Fazool said:hoping that VR has the foresight to put some serious restrictions on this
Later on in this Dev roundtable (source) Joppa clarifies "... if certain pre-requisites are met... we don't want any Leap Frogging and Content Skipping"
Kilsin then brings up a story of how back in EQ they would camp an Alt character in a deep dungeon and then summon in a whole Raid to one specific Boss.
The Dev's are all old school players and are quite aware of many of these tricks and cheese exploits players have come up with. From their discussion we can tell that they already have some things in mind to deal with them.
Many of you have pointed out various tactics they could use, like cooldowns and costs and such. But I think it might be more about just meeting certain requirements or as Joppa put it 'Pre-Requisites'. One of these would be having unlocked or visited the Safe Spot in question first. You wouldn't be able to be summoned to a Safe Spot you have never been to yet.
Even without zone lines it would also be safe to guess that VR will also require players to be close by in order to be summoned. Perhaps you'll need to be within a set Range of the Safe Spot in order to be eligible to be summoned by it. No hanging out in Town waiting to be summoned across the world. You at least need to get yourself to the area of the dungeon even if it doesn't have a loading zone-line. You also can't just port back to town to sell off your loots and then get summoned back to the dungeon. You'll need to hoof it back out there to get close enough to be summoned back to your group.
VR could do this by maybe having an 'Aura' created by the Safe Spot itself which gives all players within a Set range a 'Hidden Buff' specific to that Safe Spot. So in order to be Summoned by the Safe spot you must have this specific hidden Buff on you.
They could also use this hidden buff for the 'summoner' pre-requisites as well. Such as Duration; You must have had the buff for a set up-time before you can summon somebody.
They could also keep track of how many enemy kills you've made while you had the buff on... so for each kill that grants you XP while you have the hidden buff the hidden buff gains a stack.
When a player attempts to use the Safe Spot to summon a new group member down to the Safe Spot, it will check this 'Hidden Buff' and see how long the player has had the buff and how many stacks the buff has. The Safe Spot summon tool will then have pre-requisites of up-time of the buff and a certain number of stacks in order to allow you to use the summon tool. If you haven't been killing anything in the area, you will have Zero stacks and you can't use the summoning tool to summon other players.
VR can even set different requirements for different Safe Spot summoning tools. Some dungeons or Safe Spots early on in a dungeon may only require 15+ minute up-time with 20+ stacks, meaning groups who have only recently entered the zone can easily summon new players. While some dungeons or very deep Safe spots may require 45+ min up-time with 50+ stacks, meaning only groups who have been there for a while can use those deep safe spots to summon new players. Groups who haven't been there long enough may need to move up to a Safe Spot closer to the entrance that has a lesser requirement.
This means that only groups that have been actively adventuring and killing in the area are able to use the Summoning tool at the Safe Spot. This prevents players from camping an Alt in the safe spot and just logging in to summon players (buff could reset if you log out for more than 5 min). This also prevents groups from having somebody sneak/invis down and summon players.
They could also cause the Summoning tool to reset the stacks on the Hidden Aura buff on any player who uses the Tool to successfully summon a new player. So if you need to replace 1-3 out of the 6 group members you can do it... but if you are trying to replace 4 or more players all at once you will run out of players who can summon. This would prevent 1 or 2 players from keeping a camp spot just by pulling in new players. If your group broke up all at once you can't just use a Safe spot to summon in an entirely new group to keep your camp.
Groups only losing 1 player at a time every once and a while could then have time to re-stack the buffs on players who used the summoning tool earlier on.
Of course this is just an idea I came up with... Joppa may already have a nifty system planned out that's even cooler.
Fazool said:So now, my group can park at a valuable camp such as EQ LGuk mask or FBSS camp. And I can farm these valuable no drop items and simply port someone here to buy it from me.
I just wanted to respond to this point separately. This may have been pointed out already in this thread but just in case; Almost no items will be 'No-Drop' in Pantheon. From what we have been told, some very long and epic questlines will result in items that are bound to the player. And they have suggested that there may be some very specific epic Raid loot that may also be bound to the player but that it would be very rare.
This means that almost all items no matter where they come from will be trade-able.
The only other time they have suggested an item becoming 'bound' to the player is if they institute a system where players can Alter items in some way that change their stats. Such a system is not yet planned but they have discussed possibilities for it if in the future they want to implement such a system. One of those discussed ideas is that an Altered item would then become 'bound' to the player who Alters it.
This means there will be no need for you to use a Safe Spot to summon in a buyer for loot from a named target you were camping. You could just collect the item in question and sell it later at your convenience.
vjek makes a compelling point - in a group-centered game it does seem inconsistant to allow groups to function only if they are willing to wait an hour to assemble everyone or just happen to all be in the same place. Most players will be more interested in killing things and getting rewards than in exploring and enjoying the feeling of being in a large world.
Yet it does increase the social element to force us not to group with the same people over and over and over (other than as a fixed group that does nothing else and always stays in the same places) and go out and look for new groupmates that happen to be in the dungeon already so they can be summoned.
GeneralReb also makes a compelling point. In many MMOs (and FFXIV is by far the worst in my experience) characters port in, do a speed-run and leave without ever saying a word. Granted some of that is due to cross-server grouping and some is due to language issues but much of it is due to the feeling that the purpose of playing isn't to talk it is to get the maximum loot and xp per minute. I cannot deny that over the last 20 + years I have lost much of the feeling that there is anything to a game beyond loot and xp per minute. Pantheon is my best, maybe my last, hope of getting that feeling back.
dorotea said:Most players will be more interested in killing things and getting rewards than in exploring and enjoying the feeling of being in a large world... much of it is due to the feeling that the purpose of playing isn't to talk it is to get the maximum loot and xp per minute. I cannot deny that over the last 20 + years I have lost much of the feeling that there is anything to a game beyond loot and xp per minute. Pantheon is my best, maybe my last, hope of getting that feeling back.
Perhaps you don't read as many posts as I tend to. IMO a very large percentage of Fantheons - maybe the majority - are at least as interested in 'exploring and enjoying the feeling of being in a large world' and crafting, as they are in combat & loot. And a significant number like me see those as higher priorities. (Not in any way to suggest that we are NOT interested in combat & loot too)
I look forward to exploring and enjoying in group with you after release, on the journey to rekindle that joy :)
Give the summoning abiliity a long cast time and decent cooldown.
Player being summoned must be in the group.
Player being summoned must be in the zone.
Player being summoned must have visited this particular campfire before, to be summoned to it.
The campfire should not be near to any bosses.
They can provide convenience to summon someone to the group by being deeper in the dungeons and not having to start from the entrance, but they should be out of the way and away from bosses and campable spawns (it also makes sense this way, a safe campfire spot is not going to be outside a boss's lair, it's going to be hidden somewhere off the beaten path).
Vandraad said:GeneralReb said:
The point of campsites is that the players place them wherever they are. These will probably not be fixed locations, so there would be no way to have a player 'discover the campsite' when they are placed by players dynamically.
Okay wait did I miss something from chat or discord? The DRT stream he clearly says "unlock them"
And other times campsites were discussed as something players put down themselves. Like so many other concepts in this game, what the actual end product will be is still complely up in the air. Yes, we did see in an Amberfaet stream a location where 2 NPCs were standing around which was 'a campsite' and it was there Joppa mentioned that such locations were 'safe spots'.
But what about these static campsites in overworld zones? There can be locations where a given player cannot reach a group so would we not see them there as well? A couple in Hanggore in Avender's Pass for example?
No Vandraad, you're just incorrect on this one.
Campfire are the safe spots that the devs will create within dungeons off the beaten path.
They are not placed by the players anywhere they like.
It is hard to say what restrictions campfires should have without knowing VR's larger set of goals. Do they want to prevent fast-travel in general? Do they want to make vendoring/repairing trivial, or time-consuming? Do they want to make most early dungeon content optional/skippable? Do they want corpse runs to be trivial? Do they want to allow or minimize groups monopolizing drops and selling loot rights? To what potential problem is "campfire" the solution you created? The answer to these and other core principals questions will determine what, if any restrictions would need to be placed on campfires.
Xonth said: The OP must be interpreting the same information differently then me. After watching everything on the campfire subject I see it working like this. I'm some of the more massive dungeons there will be a few pre build campfires(can't pick your own location). Once you have worked your way to one on previous group sessions (have have been there at least once before) you will be flagged for that one location. When a group needs to replace someone they can fight through the dungeon to one of these location and summon (as a group so it could take multiple players) a new player to the campfire but only if they had been there before. I would imagine it will only work inside the dungeon zone. So could this be exploited? Sure but with a ton of effort most likely requiring multiple real players to accomplish. But even then you still have to fight to your destination.
Yeah I know there might be room for interpretation or even some ongoing design tweaking in-house, but I always thought campfires were effectively safe collection points in a dungeon.
You can perhaps only ever 'register' at one camp site and only if you fight your way there. After that, you can teleport to it if you are in the dungeon.
So, a group that has fought its way deeper, but has team members that need to leave, can teleport back to the campfire to safely pick up new members.
Players that had to end a session, but want to continue the dungeon, will have teleported to the campsite and logged out and can later log back in and seek a group (that can easily teleport to the campfire and 'collect' them).
Not intended for anyone to be able to teleport into the dungeon if they had left to go to a bank or whatever else. Not intended for a group to be able to teleport in players from all over the world.
Just safe spots within the depths of a dungeon, for you to group up at, so that VR can more easily deliver on the 2-3 hours session concept without making dungeons small or making teleporting common.
fazool said:OK, well I'll simply camp a deep rare spot and be paid by the hour. I'll wait for a rare NPC to spawn then Ill notify my customer who comes to do their turn in or kill.
on, and on........
Players will find ways to exploit and abuse any game mechanic meant to make the world simpler/faster/easier.
I give this a cautious wait-and-see, hoping that VR has the foresight to put some serious restrictions on this.
If I am reading correctly, your concern is that certain rare items will be camped 24/7 by higher level players?
As you said, players will always find ways to exploit mechanics. A game should not restrict players from being innovative or thinking outside the box to find better ways, even if it means abusing certain mechanics, to reach their goals - as long as it's within the boundaries of the rules of the game.
And if you are willing to get paid by the hour, that's perfectly fine I think. You are spending your time ingame to farm certain objects - is that unfair for other players that came to the spot?
Not necessarily - in terms of their perspective, you were there first.
Then they will come back and find you there again, that's when the social interaction starts, and if said player doesn't agree with you abusing certain farm spots, they can always call the help of their guild - you can do the same, and so ensues a huge ingame "drama" which can be sung in taverns for years to come ^^